Lies and Illusions
by yaosama
Summary: Kanda insists that there's something under Lavi's mask, until Lavi proves him otherwise.


Everything is a lie, isn't it?

Your name, your birthday, your smile…

And every word that you've spoke.

What can I trust?

All that I can believe in is your emerald eyes, and fiery red hair, right?

_I want to see what's underneath your mask._

Lavi loves Kanda. Everybody knew that. Kanda knew that too, after hearing it countless times. But the reason Lavi never stops saying it is because Kanda has never responded to Lavi's confessions. Not once, for the too-many-too-count times Lavi has said 'I love you' to Kanda, Kanda has never returned those three words to Lavi.

"Why don't you just accept Lavi?" Lenalee had once asked Kanda. But Kanda had never answered that question too.

_Because I'm the only one who can see through your mask._

Kanda knew a lot of things. He knew that Lavi would be waiting for him at the woods behind the Headquarters every morning to spar with him. He knew that every day, at lunch, Lavi would be waiting for him at the same table in the corner, with a bowl of buckwheat noodles. He knew that every time he came back from a mission, Lavi will be waiting for him at the door, either congratulating him on his successful mission, or dragging him into the hospital wing.

But Kanda has never believed any of the words Lavi spoke to him. Because Lavi is a Bookman. Because Lavi has no heart. As long as Kanda does not respond, sooner or later Lavi would give up and forget all about him.

Still, there were a lot of things that Kanda may never know. Like how sometimes Lavi would sacrifice his sleep to spar with Kanda, just to spend a bit more time with him, even if he had been working till late night the day before. Like how Lavi had to force himself out of the hospital ward after a particularly long and tiring mission just to be there when Kanda came back. Like how, in the dead of the night, without his mask, Lavi would sigh and wonder how long he can keep this passion up.

Despite that, there were still some facts that Kanda was well aware of. Like the fact that if he was to accept Lavi's confession, all hell would break loose. Bookman will come after them - not to mention the Pope – and someday Lavi would have to inherit the Bookman clan, and then, and then, Kanda would be nothing but a page in history.

But there was another fact that Kanda knows very well. The fact that Kanda was in love with Lavi, uncontrollably and undeniably.

"Why do you want to start a relationship when you already know that it is going to end?" was the reply Kanda gave to Lavi one day, after the nightly 'I love you's right before the two of them returned to their rooms.

"…Yuu?" The corridor was deserted and the words seemed to echo around the two of them.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I said, why do you keep saying that you love me even when you know that one day, you're going to leave me?"

"Yuu…What? No … I wasn't –"

"Stop lying! Aren't you a Bookman? Eventually you'll have to inherit the Bookman clan, and go somewhere else to record history. And when that time comes, you're going to leave this place and all the people that you've fooled into thinking that you'll stay with them with your act, and I'll just be…"

The rest of Kanda's sentence was left unsaid as Lavi leaned over and shut Kanda up with a kiss.

The kiss was long and heavy and only when Kanda's lungs had began to run out of oxygen did Lavi let go of him.

"Does this look like an act?" Lavi's voice was full of hurt.

Kanda remained silent.

"Is that why Yuu keeps rejecting me? Let me tell you something, Yuu, you can doubt any other word I spoke to anybody else, but you can never doubt my love for you."

"Even if, one day I'll have to fall out with Gramps, I'll still never give up on you. We'll just go somewhere else after this war is over, somewhere where no one would care who we are, and we can stay by each other forever. Besides, I think Gramps already knows.

"So please don't say things like that. I would never want you to finish that sentence, because you mean the world to me."

"Do you believe me now, Yuu?"

Nod.

"Good. I love you~"

"…Me too."

_There was never anything underneath my mask. It's just me. _


End file.
